The Brightest Game
by Savage Ink Spillage
Summary: When Loki has been left to his cell for a few months, he begins to exhibit strange symptoms. A newly crowned Thor slowly begins to realize that this, for once, is no ruse. He discovers that the invasion of earth was child's play in comparison to the scourge that threatens the realms now. Can the dying would-be conquerer of earth be relied on to guide them onto the right path?
1. Chapter 1

**The Brightest Game**

Loki, traitor of Asgard, plague of Midgard and son of Laufey, the jotun-king, stood proudly overlooking a vast valley. His garments screaming scarlet, skin unrepentantly blue and blazing with cold, he stood. In the valley, the sun shone. He'd tracked it overhead, coat shifting the sand, every step true and forceful. He alone had broken through the desert walls and claimed the land. Not through force, never through force... he had simply spoken. And those fools... his valley filled with glorious fools, they took his words as truth and then made _law _out of them. The Silvertongue's victory. The conquest of _words_.

A disgraceful one according to the whole of Asgard, as it had required sword nor axe nor bow and in that wretched realm, that which remained clean of blood could not have been truly conquered.

Yes, he remembered it well, the fragment of times gone past; he, a mere babe still, had cut his finger whilst on an exploration of the gardens, and bled for the first time in his vast and undying memory.

_Then_, he had been conquered by Odin. _Then_, the moment the lone drop hit the grass, before he could even conjure up tears, he had joined the long list of stolen relics. He became the second and oft overlooked son of Odin on the edge of a leaf, and no one told him.

Well... he knew now. _He knew._ Bitterness turned to blood, and suddenly his fingers were stained red, blood starkly contrasting against the silver-blue skin it sought to escape from. The flow could not be stemmed, and when the first drop fell, far down into the valley of Loki the just and righteous King, the landscape changed.

Barren, cold, of life and light utterly void; his kingdom laid to ruin. From the charred homes of his people, the chitauri arose. They moved through the wreckages like the parasites they were, slithering through crevices and scaling the cliff walls. After him, _again_, frothing at the mouth like the beasts they were. Nothing human resided on their faces, nor under their skin; they were mere machines, with no capacity to listen beyond the implanted command, and they knew very few... mainly _kill_, perhaps torture and then kill, if their superior was in a more benevolent mood.

Ever closer they advanced… closer and closer to the perch of the once-king where vicious winds swirled around his form, leaving him trapped and powerless. Magic failed him. The Chitauri had no ears through which a lie could penetrate. Loki was done. Loki would die here, a God stripped of his divine right by these misshapen creatures of shadow. _How pathetic. _

_Thor, with his endless golden light, he would've blinded these eyeless wretches and walked away a free man, a God among Gods. Damn him, then._

Of course, death would be too great a mercy for the fallen son... death was not what the Chitauri soldiers wrought. Instead, where their touches landed, flesh began to rot. Disintegrating down to tendon, muscle and bone until nothing was left and no senses remained... the Jotun turned æsir switched races once more. He became a soldier among soldiers, a creature of the periphery where nought could be remembered. He walked among thousands moving as a single organism, he and them, the same. All the same. None had names, none had faces... they were nothing. They were all _nothing._

* * *

Loki awakened in his cell, bathing in sweat. He would have screamed, had his voice allowed it... this day marked a second week of sickness. Not that he knew, of course, he had not the light to confirm it... what he knew was fever, and ache and a boneless fatigue that wouldn't leave him, nightmares that failed to cease and hallucinations that refused to melt back into brick and stone until he was certain of... of his return. He could feel him under his skin, where magic had once throbbed so pleasurably.

**_"You remember me, then." _**Thanos spoke from the far periphery of the universe, voice clear as its everlasting night.

"Yes, I re-remember y-you. I could n-not forget." Loki heaved a distorted sigh. He could not, indeed. His every fiber revolted, just at the sound of that voice.

**_"I shall come, liesmith, for you have failed me." _**the threat loomed, and yet didn't. It wasn't a threat at all; At its heart it was a vow, a promise sure to be upheld.

"I reg-regret to i-inform you that I c-can no longer be o-of use. _Kill me_, sire, l-let me trouble you no more. I am w-worthless, am I n-not? I stand to d-die regardless of your in-intrusion." yes, Loki was the most talented liar the nine realms had ever borne witness to... but not a fool. Not arrogant enough to partake in this final game. If he rigged the dice, if he marked the proper cards, he may have been capable of cheating death in any other circumstance. But _this_, this was of another order entirely. Death would be the _prize_! And behind the other curtain, the one woven from the hopeless darkness Thanos ruled and embodied entirely, there would be damnation. Eternal humiliation. He would be thrown away and used as a plaything by the rejects and the outcasts of the universe, savages all, and the end would not claim him. It would not dare intervene with the plans of the mad-titan, nor would anyone else.

So, there laid the silvertongue, proud enough to grovel, with just enough arrogance to beg, to cry, to plead... and he did. The guards took note of his insanity, but were too intimidated to question him outright. A small number went to fetch the newly crowned king, leaving the majority behind to stand awkwardly at the sidelines of a spectacle none wanted to see.

**_"Perhaps I will not bother myself with your wretched hull... I might just destroy you from here. From my throne. And I shall watch as you spasm like a rabid dog, revel in the pain. I would not allow you death, I would keep you as a toy."_**

With that, the Sire of the unknowable took his leave of the prisoner's mind, leaving him mad with fear. Mad with the anticipation of that which his mind could not contain, mad with... with _madness itself. _

* * *

When Thor, the golden God forever shrouded in light, slit through the darkness of the dungeon some time later, he saw a captive driven sick with sin. Perhaps an untamable, _infuriating _portion of his mind saw a brother, suffering. Whatever the case, King Thor prided himself always on his keen sense of justice, if not on his wits. And to see a once proud man beg stone walls for death was not justice. Not at all.

Still, he remained weary of the liesmith and his fabled skill. For close to an hour, he stood on the threshold of the cell. The prisoner, a brother once, never acknowledged him once in all that time. Sunken eyes, greying lips, traces of vomit around the corners of his never-stilling mouth; he didn't care for Thor's attention, not for that of the guards… merely for that of the shadows. The shadows that could apparently grant him his demise. He tracked their motions across the walls, eyes sliding over Thor as if he wasn't even there. _Please, _he said; _please kill me, _he begged. _Please. _

Loki had never been one to say it, not even as a child. Too prideful, too stubborn. And before Thor's coronation, at his sentencing, the word hadn't passed his lips either. Loki was a man of grace. A man of strength. An evil man, maybe, but also every inch a God. Gods did not beg for death. They _didn't. _They simply bore their separate eternities until time ran out. They _didn't beg! _Why did he have to keep saying it? _Why_?

"_Please_," said Loki. Febrile, tired, _mad man_ Loki. He tried to lift an arm to grasp a handful of air, but it refused to rise. He was weak.

"_Please,"_ sounded a fractured voice. Thor nearly yelled at him to keep quiet. He couldn't stand to hear it anymore. That word… that _hateful word!_

"_Loki._" he darkly intoned, finding himself ignored in favour of a discolouration on the far wall. As he advanced on the gaunt, mewling thing that at one time might have shown features of one he loved, he kept track of the... _the conversation_ Loki was attempting. Fear arose within his broad chest, prompting him to call the ailing man once more, with more force. It was true, Thor didn't believe in the redemption of the liesmith any longer. He didn't believe it could ever be. He didn't believe it could ever be _deserved_. Not after Midgard... but did he actively hate him? It took quite a lot of effort to maintain, hatred, and when Thor tried especially hard he thought of how exhausted Loki must've been when he let go of the Bifrost. How he would have been crushed beneath all of its weight, had he not fallen instead. Hatred was not it, exactly. It wasn't trust, certainly no favour, but when he heard his once-brother barter with the shadows for death, something welled up within him, strong enough to lift the prisoner's diminished physique.

"Still your tongue now... you plead with bricks, Loki, nothing will come of it."

First, he merely took inventory of the captive's ailments: Fever, nausea, nothing too exotic save for a small collection of blood drops staining the cot just around the outline of his ears that no guard could explain.

"Th-Thor... is that y-you?" Loki whispered as though addressing a single star, out of the millions; he spoke as though he expected to be ignored, so very soft it was nearly the case.

"Yes, 'tis I. Why does blood stain your ears, Loki?"

"It... I-It hurts. When he s-speaks to me, it _h-hurts_. Can y-you not d-deliver me? I bring n-nothing but chaos... be r-rid of me..." even in his wretched state, Loki knew the plea to be futile. But then, a man with nothing to lose was free to risk what he pleased to.

"No. I shan't be your executioner, Loki. If I had wished for you to receive the death-penalty I would have made it so. Now, tell me who speaks to you." Thor cast a suspicious glance at the line of guards that stood, poorly pretending not to be listening in. Had one of them decided to go forth and have a spot of fun, at Loki's expense? Ill-will, he could forgive, but he as king had commanded them to treat him with dignity; that made it their absolute _duty_ to obey.

"_Thanos_..." Loki moaned, leaving his once-brother to sag in both relief and abject sadness. His brother's sharp wits had dulled in all this time spent ill.

"Thanos is not here, Loki, he cannot issue any harm." Thor signaled a look to the guards. He hoped it to be an apology.

"Y-You misunderst-stand... he i-isn't a person, n-not just... Thanos is an entity of e-energy. He can... c-claim any vessel h-he wishes, from a-a-any dis-distance... he only n-need... he on-only needs to..." sensing Loki's growing distress, Thor softly shushed him. He sat there, on the edge of the cot, until a gurney arrived. Told himself he did it because he thought himself a fair king, and that he surely was, but kings never felt so keenly for their subjects as to cradle their weary heads. The guards saw, and wisely failed to comment.

"The man is half dead! Why was I not informed sooner?" he demanded after his brother had fallen blessedly unconscious.

"It was never as bad as this, sir. Not to my memory, at least. Not until just now. He'd been ill, certainly, but these dungeons see a lot of ailments, sire... if you would forgive my saying so, they seem to be detrimental to one's health..." a meagre smile found its way onto his face.

"Listen well, if you ever dare mock my brother's ailment again, I should see your loathsome tongue parted from your foul mouth before its final word could be completed." Thor failed to notice his slip, familiar as it felt, and simply turned to sit beside his... yes, his brother, despite everything. Despite _Loki, _really.

Forgiveness should be earned, but bonds like the one they'd once shared, they just stayed. They existed throughout everything: even in the far distance of such utter hatred and chaos, the imprint was felt.

The guards, for their part, merely stood solemn and mute on the fringe of the tableau of the King and the mad prisoner. _His brother_. Thor tried to consider his earlier words... tried to conceive of a world in which he could believe his brother without hesitation, and wondered where that left them. If Thanos had claimed Loki's body, had he been as much of a pawn as his supposed soldiers? Yes, it could also be a lie, a singular lie in an ocean of falsehoods, and thus easily disregarded... but he'd begged for _death. _Why weave the untruth which would exonerate him, if his goal was to die regardless?

Finally, Thor decided he was to visit Odin - after he'd seen to his brother's welfare, of course.

"I won't have you killed, brother mine... I never would."

"I am n-not your brother, you fool..." Loki returned to wakefulness with as hateful a hiss as he could manage on a quarter intake of breath.

"You would have your final moments filled with hatred, then?" somehow, the thought saddened Thor, even if he had no intention of ever allowing his brother's demise.

"There w-would b-be no difference... you are a-as much a fool as you were before I l-left, I as much o-of a m-madman." Loki stammered hatefully, eyes flickering briefly with the depth of his illness, his madness, and his _fear._

"Could you withhold from such vitriol for just a moment, Loki? Allow this hapless fool to care for you now, before you berate me once more." a healer came to stand stiffly beside the cot, handing his king potions to administer without so much as a glance at his former prince.

"I requested transport, healer… I should like the prisoner brought closer to my quarters." Thor sought the eyes of the aged æsir and held them hostage with his own electrifying gaze, willing him to speak, to _act, _beyond the passive passing of a few vials. "Your father said it would be unwise to allow the prisoner out of these confines."

Thor let a sigh escape to signal his frustration. "Aye? Well, know then, healer, that though the Allfather may have deemed it so, it is _I _you serve, and I would see this prisoner taken upstairs and his ills _tended to._ What I ask of my subjects is not kindness, it is not forgiveness, but if it is compassion and compassion alone that serves to separate the noble races of men from _beasts, _then for the sake of the Norns, summon some up before the man dies! Shackled in the darkness, begging for aid from the bricks of his cell whilst those who dare call themselves _fair_ linger by and do nothing… you would expect me to sink so low? Out of sheer _spite_? Odin perhaps, perhaps the lot of you, but _not I, _do you understand!?"

Thor turned on the onlooking guards with such force, half a dozen turned tail in search of a stretcher before he had completed the motion entirely.

* * *

**Author's Notes: Just a few quick things;**** I intend to update on a weekly basis and my tumblr handle is the exact same, minus the spaces, should anyone be wondering. This is my first attempt at a Thor fic, so any criticisms would be welcomed!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

"Thor…" as he heard his name, his demeanor gentled once more.

"Th-thank you." a tear slid down the ivory plane of Loki's left cheek, red like the King's cape, red like his rages, red like his desires, red like every death he'd ever borne witness to, and… red like blood. In the end, traitors bled no differently from heroes; the victors not more nobly than the defeated. Perhaps in their own minds. Yes, in the collective mind of Asgard, the blood of an æsir shone differently from the blood of perhaps a lowly Jotun, but as their sire could plainly see, it was not so.

Perhaps it was then he vowed to see his brother well again, see him as a brother once more, perhaps this had occurred much sooner, but the vow was made regardless.

"You bleed, brother mine. Why do you bleed?"

"I know n-not why. P-Please, I know I am a l-liar. I am. tr-truly… but I d-don't know. I only know the pain. N-Nothing else. Y-You must believe me! Y-You must! I can f-feel it consuming m-me. _I don't know why!" _these four words, he repeated. He laid coiled up like a chilled child, rocking side to side with fear blazing from his emerald eyes.

"I believe you. Set aside your fears for this moment, Loki… we shall see you right soon eh, brother?"

The thunderer spilled his comforts freely, watching in despair as his once- and now again-brother seemed to lose himself in his chants. "Oh, Loki… you fool… I believe you. I truly do. Look at me, please."

A liesmith with the gift of truth within his grasp would hold it close. Yes; he would not divulge it, choosing instead to weave his own twisted narrative. But for every second the scheme ran, he would never allow his chin to dip. Not even slightly. Even at his maddest moments, Loki had been a proud man. A true God, to all who beheld him, if not the kindest one available. He would not grovel like this, wouldn't allow his prized mind to be poisoned such as this, nor his stature to be reduced to such a pitiable thing.

This time Thor trusted him. This time Loki held the truth behind his eyes when their gazes met.

Where sapphire had met emerald one brother had seen the other and the blatant truth emerged that both had cause to be fearful.

"_Look at me_, Loki. Stop this… I shall do whatever is in my power to see you well once more, but you have to stay with me. Are we in agreement?" Thor had grasped his brother's chin gently at the start of his plea and held it slightly firmer when he came to its end. "Are we in agreement, brother?"

"_Yes._" Loki said no more than this, but seeing how much effort it cost him to speak, the noble king of Asgard merely held both his prisoners gaze and hand and left him to his silence.

"Good. At my side then, Loki."

And so it was, even when the guards came to carry the ailing captive to the healing quarters.

"Has the pain lessened at all, brother?" Thor asked, stooping slightly to catch the answer as it drifted past on an exhale; "No." the tormented man looked _guilty, _saying so… _actually guilty. _"Loki? For Valhalla's sake, brother, it is not your fault. Do not fret so, will you?" the king's leathered palm came to rest on rough cloth, feeling bone and tendon slide and grind beneath it where it grasped Loki's shoulder.

"I shall see to it you're fed well, Loki. I'll have the kitchens prepare something immediately."

The liesmith snorted, incredulous; "They w-would never oblige y-you for one so lowly as I… and I c-cannot e-eat, regardless…"

"You cannot…? Well, I shall see to the rectification of that issue… and no cook will deny an other from their king, lest they are a fool. But… mayhap mother would be so kind as to prepare a broth for you. She misses you, you know." Thor's smile widened when he saw the expression of peace that washed over his tormented sibling's face at the mention of that blessed woman. It was the most sincere calm they'd shared since the start of this whole debacle.

"I m-miss her too… does she h-hate me? Like your father does?" and the fear Thor saw here trumped even Loki's fear of the mad titan. He thought himself hated by perhaps the only person in the universe he still thoroughly loved. Thor wanted to disagree with the notion that Odin hated him but he was aware that it was by Frigga's graces he still lived.

"She doesn't. She could never. Come to think of it, neither could I. You will always have a place in our family, Loki. I know you doubt this, but it is true."

Loki choked on his answer and chose to keep it caged behind his lips. Thor theorized that it must have been something spiteful, but he was less certain of this now than he would have been before he had been summoned to the cell.

"I can't… _breathe_…" Thor immediately halted, bidding the guards at either end of the gurney to do the same. He knelt beside his ailing brother as he began to buck on the narrow stroke of fabric, tried to still the frantic motions as gently as he could. "Stop it! Loki, stop this; you'll only harm yourself further!"

Sensing the growing desperation that radiated from Loki's quivering form, he laid his hand softly over stricken green eyes and touched his lips to the liesmith's ear. "Breathe now," he softly bade. "Breathe, in and out. You can breathe, brother." the hand came up to caress sweat-slicked hair. "All pain can be mastered, Loki. This I know you can do… in and out, that's how it goes, just breathe…" his other hand, the king used to hold his brother's fast-chilling counterpart. He could feel its nails leaving bloody crescents in his skin for all the force Loki's fear had leant him.

"Hush, brother, hush… breathe now, or you may yet turn _blue_!"

At long last, Loki succeeded in drawing a breath full enough to sustain him.

"I'm _supposed_… to be blue… you dullard!" he panted, a smile at the edge of his greying lips.

And yes, the thought should have horrified the king, at the very least alienated him somehow, but with such a clear glimpse of the brother of old before him… well, what could he do but laugh?

"I _have_ missed you, brother…" he scooped the diminished form off the gurney and took off running before the guards could mount a protest. Loki was caught between laughter and pain as they speedily neared the gates of the wretched prison that had kept him for so long, and Thor would later _swear _to have felt the relief flood his body as he charged outside like a freshly unleashed youth.

Then, sunlight hit his brother's face, and all halted. Loki stiffened, breathing once again stilled, and cried his crimson tears… oh, sunlight, such blessed _light! _He had no memory of it, it seemed. He remembered only the damp and stifling dark with its hands that clawed and eyes that glared and its many changing faces, its inhabitants; so infused by it they allowed it to turn them into savage beasts with no regard for anyone or anything… it was so _dark, _dark enough to extinguish a life, as slowly as it dared… dark enough to ward off hope. Too dark to see, too dark to even draw breath… _too dark…_

_"Loki!" _said man came to with a jolt, staring blearily into the concerned face of a thunderer. "Be at peace, Loki. It is no longer dark! _Please, _brother, I know not of this darkness… we are _outside, _can you not see the sunlight?"

"S-Sunlight…" Loki thought of more than sunlight, letting the light stab him so savagely and so deliciously in the eyes… what it meant, this light, was freedom. Perhaps not from the heavy chains he still wore or the threat of the mad-titan nestled away inside his skull, but this light… it opened up the vast expanse of the universe, so that if even just in that moment, he could be _truly free_. He felt like he imagined Heimdal did; saw everything, heard everything, reveled in the tumult and the peace of the universe as it clashed with itself and sought to tore itself apart and yet held like the most tenuous and most glorious construction creation could ever have devised… oh, _sunlight! _

"You laugh, brother…" any concern had been eradicated by the sound, and Thor decided he could leave his brother in the sacred open for a moment longer, before he had to charge on toward the healing room. The guards Thor had managed to escape from caught up with them during this brief respite, but they had not the heart to voice anger or tamper with the moment they had intruded on. They simply stood, as the captive prince basked in the light and the king held him firm, smiling in a way that seemed to eradicate all the shadows from all of Asgard… and when their king said it was time to go, they went.

Thor eyed the gurney they still dangled between them, held his brother slightly firmer to his chest and charged on. He felt the tremulous beat of Loki's heart against his armor, saw his eyelids flutter… but every inch of his being shone with happiness, and somehow, that made him both less and more afraid. What if this feeling of euphoria was simply the last avenue his brain took before it reached a dead end?

Six-hundred-eighty-one steps it took to reach the healer's quarters, and for every one Thor strained to ensure his brother's heart still beat and his lungs still drew breath… sometimes he paused, fearful and unsure, but he always found reassurance. Again, and again, until at long last the broad doors loomed before him.

* * *

Some unfortunate subjects lay moaning nearest to the door, but… well, sod them and their bloody hunting accidents. Odin had once said that a true king would never yield to favouritism, but then; if there ever existed a more talented liar than the liesmith himself, it would have been the allfather.

"I request aide on the Prince's behalf!"

At this request, healers speedily stole Loki from Thor's arms and placed him on a bed. Together, they called forth magic that seemed to dance like sand in the wind, showing information Thor didn't doubt was somehow vital, even if he had no idea how to read it.

He could see his brother's eyes sweep over the orange coloured magic that incased him, reading it with such profound comprehension Thor felt like the thickest person in his own realm, and the proudest brother you could ever hope to find.

"Are you doing well, then?" the king inquired after spending too many moments left out of vital knowledge.

"No." the word spewed forth between choppy intakes of breath that should have answered the question before it was ever asked, and although a certain exasperation shone through at having to answer it, the true venom which had marked Loki's every word of late remained missing. For that, at least, Thor could be glad.

Slowly, perhaps deliberately or perhaps guided by sheer panic, the liesmith's hand broke through the enchantments to seek another to hold. His brother could do nought but oblige, running calloused fingers over the dried blood that caked Loki's palm, as it did seemingly every other inch of him.

He spotted a bowl of warm water and a cloth near a bed to his left, it's inhabitant smiling at him as he went to take it. "Thank you, kind sir." there weren't many Asgardians left whom could look upon Loki so kindly, after all. Thor vaguely knew the man as one of seven brothers… so mayhap he knew the feeling. Between brothers there was a covenant, a promise, to look after one another even in the midst of a feud, even in the absence of a proper blood relation, even when all others would leave the stricken sibling to their fate, between sworn brothers there would always be care.

Thor gently took his brother's hand and washed it with the cloth, spinning meandering tales of days long gone in which they had been no more than a pair of princes seeking entertainment in peacetime. The air around them swelled with the scent of herbs and the warmth of comfort.

"Thank you…" mumbled Loki, his eyes shining brightly with pain regardless of how calm he willed himself to be.

"Do not thank me yet, Loki. Not yet. Tell me what I can do to help, thank me after I've done it, but not yet. And… brother? I'll do whatever you require of me, but… not that. I will _never _do that."

"_Please…_" Loki begged. A smile formed on his lips at the futility of it.

"What is it you fear so much?" after many a minute wasted in deliberation, this was the sentence Thor chose to breach the unstable silence.

It was at this moment, Odin stormed into the healing rooms with the brazen recklessness that so marked his kin. Not too bad an answer, incidentally...


	3. Chapter 3

"_What is the meaning of this_! Why is the traitor no longer in chains? Have you gone mad!?" when met with the barrage of questions, Thor let his anger act as a proper defense… Frigga would surely have something to say about the impoliteness of that. Then again, show her a chosen son writhing in illness and woe the man who dared to part them.

"He is ill! Can you not see he wouldn't have been long for this realm if not for my intervention?"

"How do you know you're not being lied to? Are you certain this _illness _is not a fabrication to gain favour?"

Odin charged up to Loki's bedside, crudely lifting him in order to inspect his physique. His very being, every last inch, a _lie. _Perhaps he'd engineered this one with his fingers, but his fingers Odin found bloodless and weak… his mouth then, blue-tinted cracked lips and unwieldy tongue and all, but he didn't emit a sound save for the occasional whimper or moan… still, ever paranoid (Odin preferred the term _'watchful'_), the Allfather roughly manipulated his once-son's limbs until he was - if not convinced of his sickness, at least his innocence of having enchanted Thor.

"So, you see, father; He is in fact ill. Now _stop hurting him!_" ah yes, blessed _force, _the second language of the golden realm of Asgard. What luck they both spoke it so well. Within two seconds, Thor had removed his father from where he so invasively inspected his brother and indadvertedly thrown him against a wall. The old god merely caught himself and straightened out.

"You still defend him? After all he's done to us? Why do you allow yourself to be tainted by his madness so _easily?_ Have you as little sense as he does?"

"He doesn't deserve to die in a cell like a caged _dog_, father!"

"_Yes he does! _That was to be his penalty! You were there at his sentencing, were you not? Be glad I've permitted him to live this long. You know it was by your mother's graces I did!"

"Mother, yes… so you let her son _expire _with not an effort made to aid in _any way, _and you expect her to understand? To _let you live_?" Thor laughed, a spiteful, sniping thing.

"Frigga will come to understand, in time. Loki stopped being a son of this realm the moment he betrayed us."

"You _raised him_, do you not feel _anything_ seeing him suffer thusly?"

"I do. Of course I do. But I'm also quite keenly aware he is not to be trusted, as you would do well to remember." something akin to remorse showed on his battle-worn face then, but Thor found himself still too enraged to properly acknowledge it.

"I do remember. It is not in spite of his madness that I stand by him, it is _because of it. _I found him pleading with spectres in his cell. His madness is ruining him, father; it has begun to poison his mind!"

"Thor… his mind has already been eroded. You know this. You _saw it._"

"_Aye…_" a seed of doubt seemed poised to plant itself and… then Thor turned. He saw his brother, _his brother_, straining against some mounting agony. He didn't seem to care Thor wasn't there to bare witness to it all, didn't acknowledge the healers that swarmed around him, didn't acknowledge anything or anyone save the pain. It _couldn't be a lie_.

Otherwise, the panic in the eyes of the healers would be unwarranted. They would weave their magic and see through it, not tend to him so kindly, hiding their fright whilst they spoke in hushed tones above him. They didn't know what ailed Loki. When Thor asked, they at least tried to appear calm, but the fact was that they weren't. Over time, their movements had become increasingly frantic. Where at the start they had regarded Loki with cold detachment, a glimmer of care could be seen on their faces now. It was their curse, as healers. They cared. Always did. Thor's Midgardian comrade Banner had said so himself.

"…but this time I believe him. _Look at him, _father! He has not the coherence to gouvern a lie! I know you must think little of me to continue to undermine my rulership as you have done, but do not ever think so little of my heart as to assume I'll let a helpless soul perish out of spite!"

In response, Odin merely laughed. _Laughed._

"You too, Thor? He was _never helpless_. Don't tell me you blame me for his madness same as he? He chose his own path. It is a pity that it lead do this but that was his own doing! My only fault was taking him out of the cold. Raising him to be a _king_!"

"Some king you meant him to be…" Thor scoffed, retreating a few steps to guard his brother against his father's ire. "I know what I've been told, father, what we've both been taught from the cradle onward. You only ever addressed the Jotnar as monsters and menacing creatures, instilled in us both a hatred so intense it tore a rift through Loki's mind to know they were kin! Speak not of fairness when my brother suffers nearby, living _proof_ of the lie it is!"

A commotion at Loki's bedside stifled further arguments, both men turning - one in fear, one in suspicion - to find the Liesmith in the throes of some fit, screaming in agony and grappling desperately for purchase before Thor hastened to offer it. And even then, he did not still. His mouth kept working silent proclamations, his eyes hungrily roving the vastly arched ceilings and needlessly ornamented surfaces of the healing rooms. All that gold, all that splendor and yet no release. Ever none. So he did what he tended to, these days: He begged. Said please again, in that tone so foreign to his tongue it brought tears to his brother's eyes. Once, he had been a prince. A God-Prince, a proud man. Perhaps it would be so again, in death, but not here: not in the fifth bed from the front on the left hand side where brothers did roar and mothers did weep. Here, he would be a beggar.

"T-Thor, Thor, you must listen! _Please, you have to l-listen, you m-must! _" Thor, - steadily losing circulation in the majority of his right hand fingers - grabbed him around the shoulders so that with each passing tremor their noses would briefly touch.

"What's happening? What is this? I'm listening, brother. I am listening, it's alright, it's… I'm here."

"Whatever he asks of you, whatever he p-proposes, you must deny him! D-Don't yield to any demand… None. _None! _Promise me!" Thor loathed it; the desperate tinge that tainted these words, the eyes that sang with insanity and pain and fear and the way he pled and begged and just… just _kept bleeding._ From his ears, eyes, mouth, nose… Thor was sickened to see scarlet crawling in sprawling branches across the bedsheets, starting in the vicinity of his brother's lower regions. Was he to lose his brother to this, then? This flagrant mockery of Yggdrasil?

He bore the rages, made his promises, held Loki to him, tried to ignore the sounds of his mother crying behind him. His eternal optimism was failing him. Only dread remained, in the end.

"I promise, Loki. If he comes for you… we will not yield. Asgard will remain standing. And… and you will stand with us." mere whispers. They were all he had to offer. His hands moved slowly, cupping his brother's face and pressing a tentative kiss to his forehead. "You shall stand with us, Loki. You shall survive, you shall be restored, and I would have you beside me. We will find Thanos, together, we shall make him pay. You can live for that, can't you? You've done it once before… survived, for revenge. Do it again, now, and you'll have my hammer. Do you understand?" Thor was not a man easily given to tears, as Loki had never been one for despair. "Y-You don't understand, Thor, you d-don't… he approaches _now. _I can feel it. I can't… I c-can't stop it… I've tried. I… I-I'm _sorry, _Thor." maybe the oaf lacked understanding, as he always had, but he lacked fear nor love when he grasped the back of Loki's head. It was meant to signify their bond, as it had in the past, but… when he touched the sweat slicked hair, he found an impostor in his grip.

One with impossibly blue eyes, a grin fit to split a face in half. Another. _Thanos._

**"So obedient… so very… subdued. Do you enjoy my handiwork, thunderer? No easy feat, mind you… how strong he was when he landed in my snare. Do you miss it, Odinson? Do you miss the one who would've struck you off the earth without thought? You should thank me. I tamed him for you, did I not?" **his voice, _its _voice, sounded impossibly loud in the closed quarters. It struck fear into all the nearest hearts, and some fellow patients fled with no regard for their ailments. Others had to be carried, but they too left, aloft in the arms of others, until only the house of Odin remained along with Eir; the head-healer.

"I shall _never _thank you for this! What did you do, monster? _What have you done to my brother!?_"

A stillness had gained mastery of Loki's limbs now, even as Thanos' gaze slid across the flesh thereon to reveal jagged wounds and ragged scars lurking just below the surface. And then, below _that, _blue.

A very deep blue. Royally so. But the marks, the marks were different. Where the other Jotnar had worn their separate inscriptions like warpaint, Loki's were paler, somehow, laced with the delicate beauty of ice as it snuck upon the windowpanes in a winter's night. After all, he had only been a runt. Not fearsome enough. Too delicate. In fact, he was… well, he was _beautiful. _

A creature of winter, perhaps, but his was not a savage chill. Only one of snowflakes, in which children would make merry… one of the ice that froze across ponds, where sports would be held and silly games played; Royal blue, webbed in intricate patterns by the pale blue of frost. He wore his skin like a fine garment. He had not been born a man of war, it seemed. He had never been one either, and both the æsir and the Jotnar scorned him for it. And, well… _why?_ He was enough, like this. All frost and wits and perhaps vanity, but _why not?_

"You think this spectacle would sway me from the belief I still have a brother in the man you have unfairly taken as your vessel, do you not? You think wrong, intruder. I care not what shape he may take… he is my brother and he needed no taming. Not by _your _hand. What have you _done_?"

**"Very well,"** purred the sire of the void from another's lips. **"I shall tell you… would you like to join in, Allfather?"**


End file.
